Very interesting. I wasn't aware of that---although we are looking at several possible levels of conjectured connections.....

On Nov 24, 2009, at 5:43 PM, Murray Hogg wrote:

> Pete Enns wrote:
>> I think this is a both/and, folks.
>>
>> 1. Historically speaking, Herod was a mess, and a mass killing was not out of character.
>>
>> 2. Matthew's Gospel is prone to some midrashic embellishments, geared as it was to a Jewish audience. Note, too, that the slaughter of the innocents drove Joseph to Egypt. They returned when all those who sought to kill him were dead (Matt 2:19-20), which certainly reflects the same command given to Moses in Exod 4:19. Matthew's Jesus is the new Moses (complete with his own Mt. Sinai experience, i.e., Sermon on the Mount, as we have discussed in this list several weeks ago, etc., etc).
>>
>> Pete Enns
>
> I'm aware of another mention of the flight to Egypt in the very fragmentary 6th/7th century Papyrus Cairensis 10 735 (see Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha, Vol.1, p.101) which is interesting for two reasons.
>
> First, in so far as it raises the slender possibility that there may, at one time, have been an independent textual witness to the event.
>
> As it stands the text from which it derives is unidentified and scholars debate whether it derives from a non-canonical gospel, a commentary, or a homily.
>
> To give an indication of how fragmentary the text is, in translation reads;
>
> The angel of the Lord spake: Jo<seph, arise,
> take Mary thy w<ife and
> flee to Egypt<.......
> ...............
> ..............
> every gift and if <....
> his friends....<....
> of the king..<....
>
> And the SECOND interesting point:
>
> Well, on the REVERSE of the above there is a passage which loosely parallels Luke 1:36 - so on the SAME fragment we find parallels to both Matthean and Lukan material - how's that for a precedent? :)
>
> Blessings,
> Murray
>
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Received on Tue Nov 24 17:52:35 2009